Stories from Bob's Life

I was in ST6 Green Team but was slated to be the command Operations Officer so the CO (Rick Woolard) was not as interested in me developing my tactical skills as he was in getting me ready to be his Ops Officer.  When he was directed to deploy into Panama for the invasion that was to become Operation Just Cause, he pulled me out of Green Team to be part of the command deployment to Panama, and participate as I could, learn all that I could about the context in which SEAL operations would be conducted – specifically under a Joint command and with forces and leaders from other services.

Though I had deployed once with the team on a contingency to El Salvador, soon after we got to El Salvador, the crisis was resolved without needing our help.  The deployment to Panama on Operation Just Cause was my first deployment on a contingency which included combat operations.  In fact Just Cause was an “invasion.”   I saw and participated in the organized chaos of arriving, establishing a headquarters, finding places for guys to sleep, eat, shit, shower shave, rehearse and be ready to go.

After setting up our briefing and planning areas we found our sleeping areas.  Each command was assigned a section of the hanger, and all of us were sleeping in cots lined up very close to each other in a hanger at Howard AFB,  It was estimated that around 400 people were sleepng in cots in that hanger – to include ST6, our much larger army counterpart, the Army TF160 helo pilots, men and women.  The women were given separate head facilities but otherwise, slept in cots right along with the guys. Our personal gear and weapons were simply stashed under our individual cots. The AFSOC helo guys wanted to be there with us, but USAF regs and their leadership demanded that they have rooms and showers and a place for crew rest and recovery – so they took over the BOQ at Howard  That meant they were hardly ever used on operations – the army helo pilots were there with us, got the word when we did, were easy to plan with and they could go on very short notice.

So that was the setting.

After several days of us sending out teams to pursue leads on finding Noriega or his leading henchmen, we got a tip that a number of his leadership team were hiding in a compound out in the country.  We sent a reconnaissance  team in to check it out, but as I recall, they never got close, got disoriented and provided little intel of value. But we believed it was a time sensitive mission so we decided to go.

As an experienced SEAL,who had nearly finished Green Team but was not yet an experienced leader in the team, I  was assigned as a “sled dog” shooter to Red Squadron and assigned to Lt Chaz Heron’s squad for the assault on the compound. The assault plan had several groups fast roping into the compound and my (Chaz’s) squad was to fast rope onto the upstairs patio outside a bedroom, break into the bedroom and deal with whatever/whoever  was there. I was to be the 3rd man out of the helo onto the rope.

What I recall most from this operation was sitting in the black hawk helicopter with Chaz and the other SEALs in our squad, with the rotors turning along with the other helicopters loaded with SEALs ready to go. waiting for someone to give us the signal to take off.

I’m thinking to myself:

“I’m about ready to go into combat and a fire fight for the first time after 14 years in the teams and all the practice and exercises I’ve done to prepare for this.  And I’ll be the third guy on the rope – the most vulnerable guy.  Any bad-guy shooter in the compound will see the first guy go down the rope, be raising his weapon when the second guys goes down and by the third guy (me) he’s zeroed in and I’m an easy target.  Anything I can do about that? No – that’s my job and I’ll do it. Am I nervous? Yes.  But though I’ve never done this before, the feeling felt familiar.  Why?”

After some consideration, I realized it was the same feeling of nervousness that I had had when playing High School football before the opening kick off. The same feeling I had warming up before going out to meet my opponent on the wrestling mat in front of a crowd. And I had almost always done well enough under those circumstances. It was mostly performance anxiety. That calmed me down and allowed me to focus.

We took off with several other helos loaded with SEALs and headed for the target compound, a flight of about maybe 30 minutes. As we approached we got all the signals to get ready, stand by, the helo flared, and first, second and third (me) guys went down the rope ( probably only 10 ft or less) followed by several more.  We spread out on the balcony and went immediately to the glass door that opened into what looked like a master bedroom, entered (I don’t recall how) and it was empty. So I with the other SEALs,  searched then went through the bedroom onto the hallway outside that  ooked out and down onto the compound, and all I saw were other SEALs rapidly moving thru and around the compound.  I do recall seeing a couple of SEALS herding a few what appeared to be local caretakers away.

It turned out to be a dry hole. No bad guys or Noriega henchmen.   I heard later that the helo pilots with their Night Vision Goggles had seen a number of people running from the compound as the helos approached, presumably alerted by the helo noise. After searching the compound and finding nothing of significance to our mission, we boarded the helos and returned to Howard AFB.

Embarrassing rookie mistake that I later discovered:   When cleaning my weapon a day or so later, I found that I had improperly placed the firing pin in my AR15, and had I needed to fire it, it wouldn’t have fired.  Could’ve been fatal to me, or to one of my teammates.  I was shocked and embarrassed.  And lucky, and didn’t admit that mistake to anyone until years later – but it was a cheap lesson learned.